Résumé
Résumé de The Jungle Book
À qui s’adresse-t-il ?
For readers who love adventure, animal tales and stories with a clear sense of right and wrong, and for parents or teachers looking for tales to share aloud.
De quoi parle ce livre ?
The Jungle Book is a collection of seven stories by Rudyard Kipling, published in 1894. Kipling was born in India and wrote the tales while living in Vermont in the United States, looking back at the world of his childhood. Three of the stories follow Mowgli, a human boy raised by wolves in the forests of India. The other four stand apart, and they tell of a seal, a mongoose, a young elephant handler and the animals of an army camp.
What do you get from it? Fast, vivid adventures with animals who talk, fight, scheme and keep promises. You also get a working idea of the Law of the Jungle, the code that tells every creature what it owes to the pack and to others. Each tale is short, and most open or close with a few lines of verse. The first key point is the one most readers know best: how a baby with no fur and no claws ends up in a wolf den.
Dans ce résumé
- 1A human cub joins the wolf packFree
- 2Learn the Law, and respect its limits
- 3Monkeys, a python and a rescue
- 4Beyond Mowgli: a seal and a mongoose
- 5Toomai and the elephants' secret dance
- 6What the stories mean and how they work
Point clé 1 sur 6
A human cub joins the wolf pack
The first story, Mowgli's Brothers, opens on a warm evening in the Seeonee hills. Father Wolf wakes and finds Tabaqui the jackal at the mouth of his cave. Tabaqui is a sneaking scavenger who brings news nobody wants, and tonight he says that Shere Khan, the great tiger, has moved his hunting to this part of the forest.
Shere Khan has been chasing a human child, and the child has crawled into the wolves' den. Mother Wolf, called Raksha, refuses to give him up. The tiger roars at the cave mouth, but he is too big to squeeze in, and she tells him the child is hers. She names the boy Mowgli, which means frog, because he has no fur.
The pack must agree before the boy can stay. It meets at Council Rock, under the leadership of the old gray wolf Akela. Baloo, the sleepy brown bear who teaches wolf cubs the Law, speaks for the boy. Bagheera, the black panther, adds a bargain by offering the pack a freshly killed bull, and the pack accepts Mowgli.
The story then moves ahead through the years. Mowgli grows strong and learns the jungle's ways, while Shere Khan keeps stirring up young wolves who resent a man cub among them. Kipling sets up a question that runs through the whole book. Where does a creature belong when it fits in two worlds and fully belongs in neither?
That’s 1 of 6 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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Who’s who
- Mowgli
- Mowgli is a human child raised by wolves, learning jungle law from Baloo and Bagheera.
- Bagheera
- Bagheera is a black panther who protects Mowgli and helps teach him the jungle's ways.
- Baloo
- Baloo is a brown bear who teaches Mowgli and the wolf cubs the jungle's laws.
- Shere Khan
- Shere Khan is a lame tiger whose claim on Mowgli threatens the child's wolf family.
- Akela
- Akela leads the Seeonee wolf pack and supports Mowgli's place among its cubs.
- Kaa
- Kaa is a powerful python whom Baloo and Bagheera approach for help against the monkeys.
- Rikki-Tikki-Tavi
- Rikki-Tikki-Tavi is a mongoose welcomed by a human family whose garden is threatened by cobras.
- Little Toomai
- Little Toomai is an elephant driver's son who rides Kala Nag and dreams of elephant adventures.
- Kotick
- Kotick is a young white seal whose concern for his fellow seals sets him apart.
- Kala Nag
- Kala Nag is an experienced working elephant ridden by Little Toomai and tended by his father.
About this edition
Every format is free to start, and print and large print are at cost.
- LengthAbout 53,000 words
- Reading timeAbout 3 h 30 min
- Listening time5 h 50 min
- FormatseBook, large-print eBook, audiobook, 15-minute summary; paperback, hardcover and large print at cost
- LanguagesEnglish and 14 other languages
Questions about The Jungle Book
What is The Jungle Book about?
It is a set of seven stories by Kipling. Three follow Mowgli, a boy raised by wolves in India. The rest tell of a white seal, a mongoose, a young elephant handler and army animals.
Who is Shere Khan in The Jungle Book?
Shere Khan is a proud, lame tiger who hunts alone in the Seeonee hills. He wants to kill Mowgli, the human child, and stirs up trouble in the wolf pack to get him.
Is The Jungle Book one story or many?
It is a collection of seven stories. The Mowgli tales are the best known, and they share a thread, but the seal, mongoose, elephant and army tales each stand on their own.
When was The Jungle Book written?
Kipling published it in 1894 and followed it with The Second Jungle Book in 1895. The tales are fiction, but they draw on his childhood memories of India and its animals.
What is the Law of the Jungle?
It is the code that governs animal life in the stories. It sets rules about hunting, loyalty to the pack and respect for others, and it protects the weak as well as the strong.